


And All Things Shall Pass

by orphan_account



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: And Now For Something Completely Different, F/F, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Loss of Limbs, Post-War, Protectiveness, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 05:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20718518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Shepard has to learn the hard way that the universe has no need for heroes in peacetime.





	And All Things Shall Pass

“**In my own country I am in a far off land.I ****am strong but have no power. ****I win all yet remain a loser. ****At break of day I say goodnight. ****When I lie down I have great fear of falling.” - **Francois Villon

“**Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.”** **\- **Isaiah 13:9

As soon as the light flares out, and the Reapers come crashing down around them all, Jack runs. 

She only wills her body forward once the Crucible crashes down in front of her, leaving a jagged crater in the land, on the horizon’s edge, yet so close, Jack fears for half a second that it’ll destroy her hearing.

She bares her teeth, lungs, burning, and foot by foot, races along the edge until the crater’s center comes into view. Shepard is the only thing that matters in her whole life at this moment, and nothing short of her heart exploding with stop her.

****

Jack has to use to the last of her energy, of her sheer, unbridled rage to pull Shepard’s blood-stained corpse out from under the mountain of rubble.

She can’t hear the sound of Shepard’s faint, raspy breath over the sound of her own screaming.

She pulls and swings chunks of granite and steel rods the size of cars around with her biotics like a child would throw marbles.

The breaking of dawn casts a reddish tint to the smoke that rises with the new uplifted dust, as the roar of an entire building being slowly dismantled echos along the wasteland like the encroaching crash of thunder and lighting.

Even as her lungs fill with smoke and her nose wrinkles from the dust and her knees buckle out from under her from sheer exhaustion, Jack is too furious to pass out.

Not until she raises her face out of the blood-stained dirt, to thread a heavy hand through Shepard’s right. To feel some sign, the faintest flicker of life. She can’t shut out the fact that Shepard’s left arm is gone. Armor singed and stump remaining.

But she hears something like a whisper, and that’s enough for her as the shadows overtake her. 

“Now I can die, because I’m coming up there to tear your arms off, asshole,” she rasps to God before finally giving in.

She’s going to tear God off her throne, melt down her throne, and force someone at gunpoint to cast it into a new arm for Shepard. 

She’s already condemned, even with the repenting she did at the Academy. But it’ll be worth it.

Still a better end then Ashley’s; a night of curious, tentative passion with Jane, before catching a bullet in the throat from Saren.

What an ignoble way to go.

*****

It’s wintertime, when the Alliance decides to commemorate Shepard with literally any award they can give her.

She smiles from atop the podium, waving as they place the rope around her neck, tightening it with each medal they pin to her dress uniform. 

And when they officially give her the rank of Captain, the floor falls out from under her, and the stupid smile is still plastered on her face as her neck snaps like a toothpick. 

So long hero, thank you for your never ending sacrifice. 

Once the crowd dies down, Jane entwines her prosthetic hand in Jack’s black-inked hand, and they walk out of the banquet hall, desperate to get back to Earth.

”I want to take your last name,” Jane whispers over the roar of the applause, and Jack almost wants to cry.

*****

Jane may have been born on Earth, but she’s only heard of Massachusetts from stories while living on Mindoir. Her mom missed living in Boston, and she can’t say she doesn’t understand why.

Anderson has a cabin out here, a few miles from the city. Sprawling masses of trees, a lake within walking distance where he and Shepard are buried in unmarked graves with their uniforms and personal effects.

It’s a kind of serene peace neither of the two women have really known in their lives.

Plus it gives Jane a place to temper the itch of her stump, and her various scars where cuts had run both shallow and deep. She puffs on a joint, the wisps dissipating into the night sky.

A gentle burning in her lungs. The faint smell of fresh coffee and distant pines. A break from wearing her bulky (if fantastic) prosthetic.

It’s the kind of Christmas season a girl can only dream of.

Jack paces over to her from the doorway, refusing to be even remotely close to dressed for the climate. Her hand is warm when she threads her fingers in with Shepard’s.

“Will you marry me?” Jack says, an edge in her voice, taking an inhale from the shared joint. Jane, feeling a pretty deep buzz in her head, and an earthquake settling in her stomach, manages to keep a poker face.

”You gotta make an honest woman out of me first, Jack,” Jane says with a laugh. Arches an eyebrow towards the bed, with it’s heavy comforter and back pain free mattress. 

“But first, food.” She crosses her arms, like a sulking child of four. 

“The things I do for you, you goddamn Girl Scout,” Jack mutters, fake exasperation coloring her voice as she lifts Jane into her arms and kicks the heavy door shut behind them. 

It’s not a fairytale love, and Jack still hasn’t torn down the throne yet, but it’s a start. A start away from roulette playing wheels of destiny and anger ground down to a spear’s edge. 

A kind of silence the two have never known before. If Jack can keep repenting like this, maybe more good things will come her way.


End file.
